How I Met Your Mother: The Final Season

[Ryan8bit]

But it wasn't turned into that in the finale. How Ted feels for Robin has always been consistent throughout the series;

This is where I disagree with you. They dedicated a lot of time, especially in the final season, saying that Robin and Ted needed to move on, wanted to move on, HAD moved on from each other. He let her go.

I don't think it was consistent. It was haphazard.

But how often did we see Ted make such resolutions and not stick to them? He was constantly having second thoughts about just about everything. Robin was almost just as bad.

And really, the reason why they needed to move on is because Ted wanted kids, and Robin didn't. In a distant future where Ted's kids are grown up, what about Ted and Robin isn't compatible?

 

[Professor Zoom]

But how often did we see Ted make such resolutions and not stick to them? He was constantly having second thoughts about just about everything. Robin was almost just as bad.

Sure. He didn't stick with resolutions. But, again, how many times did the storytellers say over and over that Ted and Robin weren't right for each other. They were saying something to the audience.

And really, the reason why they needed to move on is because Ted wanted kids, and Robin didn't. In a distant future where Ted's kids are grown up, what about Ted and Robin isn't compatible?

I don't think the idea is inherently bad or wrong. Again, it's the execution of the idea. The executed their idea HORRIBLY.

 

[MNM]

Right. I'm not opposed to the Mother being dead -- what I am opposed to is the finale suddenly turning the show into How I Met Your Mother (but I really wanted to bang Robin all this time).

"Suddenly"? Imo the show spent near the whole nine years telling you that Robin was the love of Ted's life.

The only difference between the Mother and Stella, Victoria and the girl who used to date the Captain was that circumstances and timing worked out better for Ted and the Mother.

And at least one of those relationships ended because of the spectre of Robin. "I really hope you get her" quoth Victoria.

Could the finale have been executed better? Sure. was it a mistake to spend all of season nine at Barney/Robins wedding? definitely.

Should it have been a surprise that Ted and Robin ended up together? No.

 

[Professor Zoom]

Right. I'm not opposed to the Mother being dead -- what I am opposed to is the finale suddenly turning the show into How I Met Your Mother (but I really wanted to bang Robin all this time).

"Suddenly"? Imo the show spent near the whole nine years telling you that Robin was the love of Ted's life.

This is something I just don't see. Especially given how much time was dedicated in the final two seasons to us being told that Ted and Robin weren't right for each other, and in fact, needed to say good bye to that idea so they could move on with their lives.

 

[Aldo]

Right. I'm not opposed to the Mother being dead -- what I am opposed to is the finale suddenly turning the show into How I Met Your Mother (but I really wanted to bang Robin all this time).

"Suddenly"? Imo the show spent near the whole nine years telling you that Robin was the love of Ted's life.

This is something I just don't see. Especially given how much time was dedicated in the final two seasons to us being told that Ted and Robin weren't right for each other, and in fact, needed to say good bye to that idea so they could move on with their lives.

Watching that episode where Ted has to "let go" of Robin was really touching the first time. Now? It's pretty much a waste, just like all of Season 9 is because of the way the finale pretty much undid everything.

 

[doubleohfive]

"Suddenly"? Imo the show spent near the whole nine years telling you that Robin was the love of Ted's life.

This is something I just don't see. Especially given how much time was dedicated in the final two seasons to us being told that Ted and Robin weren't right for each other, and in fact, needed to say good bye to that idea so they could move on with their lives.

Watching that episode where Ted has to "let go" of Robin was really touching the first time. Now? It's pretty much a waste, just like all of Season 9 is because of the way the finale pretty much undid everything.

This kind of comment really makes no sense to me. Basically, you're saying that the final season -- all the cool, wonderful, amazing, funny and heartfelt stuff that it did -- is worthless because you didn't like how it ended?

Ted and Robin may not have been right for each other at 30 but that doesn't mean they couldn't (finally) be right for one another 20 years later, when she had gone and done all the things she set out to do and he had finally built the family he had wanted to build. It doesn't diminish how much Ted loved Tracy or that she was tragically taken away from him. Annoying as Ted might have been to some of you, he still deserved to be happy. Robin still deserved to be happy. And it's not the end of the world that the gimmick the writers chose to tell the final season of the show wound up being "undid" by the finale, which was perfectly fine, beautiful, heartwrenching and ultimately satisfying.

I think too many people just have bought into the McGuffin of the show - that it was about how Ted met Tracy and wanted it to only be about that. The beauty of it all is that it was about how he met Tracy, but it was also ultimately about how he also fell in love with Robin and how he realized they could still both be happy after the disappointments and tragedies of their lives by the year 2030.

 

[Professor Zoom]

I think too many people just have bought into the McGuffin of the show -

Every time you say that... I hate it. I hear it as smug and condescending. I'm doing my best to assume that's not how you intend. But, to me, it comes off that way.

People who didn't like that finale aren't some Neanderthals who just "didn't get it."

If that was their story they wanted to tell, they told it poorly. A lot of people weren't satisfied.

If we want to go with your "too many people just have bought into the McGuffin," whose fault is that? The viewers? The ones who were just sitting at home? Or the ones that were creating the story?

 

[CaptainCanada]

This kind of comment really makes no sense to me. Basically, you're saying that the final season -- all the cool, wonderful, amazing, funny and heartfelt stuff that it did -- is worthless because you didn't like how it ended?

Yes, that's the thing about an arc-based show. If the ending doesn't work, the leadup is retroactively sullied.

Ted and Robin may not have been right for each other at 30 but that doesn't mean they couldn't (finally) be right for one another 20 years later, when she had gone and done all the things she set out to do and he had finally built the family he had wanted to build.

But we never saw any of them. The story we've actually been watching has shown repeatedly that they aren't compatible and need to move on.

 

[Aldo]

This kind of comment really makes no sense to me. Basically, you're saying that the final season -- all the cool, wonderful, amazing, funny and heartfelt stuff that it did -- is worthless because you didn't like how it ended?

Yes, that's the thing about an arc-based show. If the ending doesn't work, the leadup is retroactively sullied.

This. You said it much better than I ever could.

The whole of Season 9 was showing us Barney and Robin overcoming their differences so they could end up together. I wanted them to live happily ever after as much as I did Tracey and Ted. And fifteen minutes into the final episode we find out they got a divorce. I wasn't mad, I was just extremely disappointed.

 

[doubleohfive]

I think too many people just have bought into the McGuffin of the show -

Every time you say that... I hate it. I hear it as smug and condescending. I'm doing my best to assume that's not how you intend. But, to me, it comes off that way.

Of course I don't mean it to be smug and condescending. If you choose to interpret it that way because I don't see the series ending in the same way you do, that's your issue to resolve. I'm simply elaborating on my opinion of the episode and the series the same way everyone who hated the finale has been.

And not for nothing, there are plenty of people who have made that particular mistake, whinging on and on about how long the series ran and how much time was dedicated to Marshall, Lily, and Barney over the years, failing to realize that those characters became popular in their own right and regardless, the writers chose to explore those characters and their relationships with each other through the course of the series as well.

People who didn't like that finale aren't some Neanderthals who just "didn't get it."

If that was their story they wanted to tell, they told it poorly. A lot of people weren't satisfied.

I never suggested they were Neanderthals. I don't really feel like it's my problem whether people were satisfied or not. The show was done the way the people making it wanted to make it. Whether the "gets it" or not is entirely up for debate, as this thread has proven. "Is it good or bad?" is an entirely different argument than "Did people like it or hate it?" Clearly there are people who hated the finale but I still refuse to concede that this means, necessarily, that it was "bad." Also clear is that there are dividing lines on the issue.

If we want to go with your "too many people just have bought into the McGuffin," whose fault is that? The viewers? The ones who were just sitting at home? Or the ones that were creating the story?

Oh for fuck's sake, the show was easily just as much about Ted's friends as it was about Ted. And it was also very obviously about Ted's journey to meet Tracy/The Mother. It was never going to be about Ted's life with the Mother, because then it would be How I Met Your Mother and How We Now Live Together.

This kind of comment really makes no sense to me. Basically, you're saying that the final season -- all the cool, wonderful, amazing, funny and heartfelt stuff that it did -- is worthless because you didn't like how it ended?

Yes, that's the thing about an arc-based show. If the ending doesn't work, the leadup is retroactively sullied.

Well, forgive me, but that's stupid.

The whole of Season 9 was showing us Barney and Robin overcoming their differences so they could end up together. I wanted them to live happily ever after as much as I did Tracey and Ted. And fifteen minutes into the final episode we find out they got a divorce. I wasn't mad, I was just extremely disappointed.

So... Ted and Robin living happily ever after wasn't good enough? Barney becoming a father and understanding the true value of relationships and love wasn't good enough?

Is the problem then that you didn't get what you wanted out of the finale because you'd been expecting something different for nine years and didn't see the plot twist coming, or is it that you just don't like the choice the writers made?

On another note: the ending doesn't work and the rest of the series is crap? What kind of ridiculous perspective is that? Do you guys feel that way about Battlestar? Seinfeld? Or any other respectable and entertaining series that had a controversial and divisive finale?

Does the fact that "Turnabout Intruder" was a silly and dumb episode of Star Trek therfore sully episodes like "The Trouble With Tribbles" or "City on the Edge of Forever?"

Is Lost's Finale "The End" so bad that it retroactively ruins "The Constant?"

Does Star Trek Nemesis ruin the whole of Star Trek: The Next Generation for you too?

That througline of logic escapes me and I find it a really immature way of looking at things like this. I'm not saying you can't like or hate the finale (but I'll gladly point out why it works so well for me) but jeez guys. Let's get a little perspective here.

 

[Timby]

I never suggested they were Neanderthals.

You literally said, in this thread, "just because a couple of assholes on the internet didn't like it, doesn't mean it was terrible."

 

[Professor Zoom]

Of course I don't mean it to be smug and condescending. If you choose to interpret it that way because I don't see the series ending in the same way you do, that's your issue to resolve.

Nice.
And, no, I'm not seeing it that way because we disagree.... I think it's more of the words that you're using. But, whatever. I guess communication is a one way street and we don't have to reflect how we communicate because it's totally the receivers fault. Totally always their issues and their problems.

I never suggested they were Neanderthals. I don't really feel like it's my problem whether people were satisfied or not.

Who said it was your problem? Are you on the staff? I'm just suggesting that the way you are describing the people who didn't like the finale or see the show in the same way as you do are some sort of rubes who "just didn't get what the show was really about."

The show was done the way the people making it wanted to make it.

You've said this before and I don't disagree with that. Good on them for making it the way they wanted to make it.

My criticism is with the quality of the execution of their idea. Not that they executed it.

Whether the "gets it" or not is entirely up for debate, as this thread has proven. "Is it good or bad?" is an entirely different argument than "Did people like it or hate it?" Clearly there are people who hated the finale but I still refuse to concede that this means, necessarily, that it was "bad." Also clear is that there are dividing lines on the issue.

I'm not expecting you to concede that it was bad. You liked it. I get that. But, what I've never heard is that you at least get why people didn't. That, at least, intellectually, you get the arguments that people are presenting. You don't have to agree, just understand.

But it always comes down to, "You don't get what the show was really about." Maybe that's a problem not with US, but with the show? It didn't do a good job in being clear what the show was really about.

Oh for fuck's sake, the show was easily just as much about Ted's friends as it was about Ted. And it was also very obviously about Ted's journey to meet Tracy/The Mother. It was never going to be about Ted's life with the Mother, because then it would be How I Met Your Mother and How We Now Live Together.

I literally have no idea how that addresses my point or question. And now I'm suffering whiplash. So the show IS about Ted getting with the mother and not REALLY about getting with Robin?

The question I asked, I'll ask again, if you believe the story is really about Ted getting together with Robin, but many people felt the story was how Ted meets the mother, that lack of clarity, who is at fault for that? The viewers or the people making the show?

And where is all the stuff about Ted being with the Mother coming from? that's not something I suggested. Or even brought up in my post to you.

 

[doubleohfive]

I'm not expecting you to concede that it was bad. You liked it. I get that. But, what I've never heard is that you at least get why people didn't. That, at least, intellectually, you get the arguments that people are presenting. You don't have to agree, just understand.

What I understand is that we have fundamentally different opinions on the show and clearly on what it was about.

But it always comes down to, "You don't get what the show was really about." Maybe that's a problem not with US, but with the show? It didn't do a good job in being clear what the show was really about.

See, I would submit that that is also up for debate - plenty of people who did like the finale (or, if we must put it this way, who "get" what it was about) understood what was going on, enjoyed and appreciated it.

In other words, I don't think the problem was with the show. I think the problem is with what each of us watching wanted to get out of it. Some people had, likely, premeditated ideas about how the show would end or at least how they wanted it to end.

Again, I am not trying to be smug or condescending. I cannot stress that enough.

But in these cases, a series ending in a way differently that one expects does not automatically translate to it being good or bad, right or wrong. All it means is that people liked it or didn't. All I'm doing is explaining why I liked it and why I think people who didn't like it should give it another chance or at least consider the perspective I'm sharing. Too, I think at least some of this is getting rooted in the usual online schtick where we all dig our heels in and refuse to concede or admit we might not be entirely, 100% right about whatever we're talking about and on that part at least I will offer that I do see why you don;t like the finale. I'll even go so far as to say that the finale itself could probably have been structured differently (as I've said before, I'd love to see the cut of the episode with the deleted 18 minutes restored) but as a whole, the ending and the series itself included, I'm extremely satisfied with the story the writers chose to tell.

 

[Professor Zoom]

I'm not expecting you to concede that it was bad. You liked it. I get that. But, what I've never heard is that you at least get why people didn't. That, at least, intellectually, you get the arguments that people are presenting. You don't have to agree, just understand.

What I understand is that we have fundamentally different opinions on the show and clearly on what it was about.

Sure. We do. But, do you understand the reasoning behind the different opinions?

But it always comes down to, "You don't get what the show was really about." Maybe that's a problem not with US, but with the show? It didn't do a good job in being clear what the show was really about.

See, I would submit that that is also up for debate - plenty of people who did like the finale (or, if we must put it this way, who "get" what it was about) understood what was going on, enjoyed and appreciated it.

Yes. Plenty of people do like the finale and see the show how you see it. But, it's not a small minority who didn't like the finale and don't see as you do. In other words, they aren't outliers.

And to me, that means there's a lack of clarity on the writer's part.

In other words, I don't think the problem was with the show.

This is where you and I disagree. I suspect, because you were satisfied. I wasn't. To me the show was always about Ted meeting the Mother. You are presenting this idea that the show was really always about Ted getting with Robin. And i just don't see that. I don't see that at all. And if that is true, then, I think there's a lack of clarity in the writing.

I think the problem is with what each of us watching wanted to get out of it. Some people had, likely, premeditated ideas about how the show would end or at least how they wanted it to end.

That's true, even for people who were satisfied..

But in these cases, a series ending in a way differently that one expects does not automatically translate to it being good or bad, right or wrong.

For me, it's not about a series ending in a twist I didn't see coming that makes me disappointed. It's when I look back after the twist and the twist wasn't actually inevitable. Like in Sixth Sense. At the end, you look back, and it was all there. Here, I think they made a mistake of hammering home that Ted needed to move past Robin in order to get on with his life. They didn't lay the ground work so when the "twist" happened it didn't feel inevitable in hindsight. That's the poor execution I'm speaking of.

They didn't lay the ground work.

And to me, that's bad writing, that's executing the idea poorly.

All it means is that people liked it or didn't. All I'm doing is explaining why I liked it and why I think people who didn't like it should give it another chance or at least consider the perspective I'm sharing.

And I think many people are explaining why it didn't work for them. And they had such a negative response why they aren't interested in going back in. The ending of the story spoiled it for them. I get it. Let's talk Matrix Revolutions.

Too, I think at least some of this is getting rooted in the usual online schtick where we all dig our heels in and refuse to concede or admit we might not be entirely, 100% right about whatever we're talking about and on that part at least I will offer that I do see why you don;t like the finale.

Thank you. I appreciate that, I really do.

I'll even go so far as to say that the finale itself could probably have been structured differently (as I've said before, I'd love to see the cut of the episode with the deleted 18 minutes restored) but as a whole, the ending and the series itself included, I'm extremely satisfied with the story the writers chose to tell.

Great, I'm glad.

As one of the few people who really enjoyed the BSG finale, I understand where you are coming from.

 

[Aldo]

I want to put forth an analogy and hope it partly explains why the finale of HIMYM has perhaps sullied me on the rest of the show:

If I'm reading a real good book, and the ending drops the ball so much (In my opinion) that it ruins the experience for me I'm going to conclude that the book is disappointing, and I probably won't return to it again. This is how I feel about HIMYM.

Now I'm not going to judge whether or not the finale worked purely from a writing perspective, because I truly do believe this is what the writers for going for. All I can say is that it disappointed me, because, yes, it wasn't the finale I wanted. And I believe as a viewer, I have a right to express that opinion, even while I will gladly accept that their are others who disagree with me.

 

[CaptainCanada]

So... Ted and Robin living happily ever after wasn't good enough? Barney becoming a father and understanding the true value of relationships and love wasn't good enough?

No, because neither of those things has any real relation to what we were watching beforehand. The latter, especially, requires a complete reboot of Barney's character development in the series to date.

Is the problem then that you didn't get what you wanted out of the finale because you'd been expecting something different for nine years and didn't see the plot twist coming, or is it that you just don't like the choice the writers made?

My problem is that the series' ending does not fit the story we were being told.

On another note: the ending doesn't work and the rest of the series is crap? What kind of ridiculous perspective is that? Do you guys feel that way about Battlestar? Seinfeld? Or any other respectable and entertaining series that had a controversial and divisive finale?

Does the fact that "Turnabout Intruder" was a silly and dumb episode of Star Trek therfore sully episodes like "The Trouble With Tribbles" or "City on the Edge of Forever?"

Is Lost's Finale "The End" so bad that it retroactively ruins "The Constant?"

Does Star Trek Nemesis ruin the whole of Star Trek: The Next Generation for you too?

You missed the part where I said "arc-based". "Turnabout Intruder" has no impact on "City on the Edge of Forever". Nor does the Seinfeld finale; Seinfeld is an episodic sitcom where you're more or less meant to be able to watch every episode as a self-contained entity.

As examples of arc shows, you cite Lost and Battlestar Galactica, two series that quite a few people think are heavily impacted by the way their myth arcs pan out (see also: Twin Peaks and The X-Files). It undeniably affects rewatch value if you're constantly identifying things that are never satisfactorily explained, or contradict later stories, etc. For something like The X-Files that has led to fans habitually distinguishing on the show's standalone stories over the myth arc, which is incoherent and replete with dead-ends in retrospect.

That's the risk and reward of arc-based storytelling. If you stick the landing (as, for instance, Breaking Bad was judged to have done by most), the series is immensely rewarding to rewatch. If you don't, then those parts of the series that revolve around the main story are ultimately leading somewhere unsatisfying. An unsatisfying ending doesn't impair individual aspects of the show; much like "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" is just fine still, you can hum your favourite Robin Sparkles song all the same, but it affects the totality of the experience, and key emotional aspects of the show relating to Ted, Robin, and Barney.